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Many of the other case studies in this book describe the effects of chronic exposure to chemicals at work. What happened to Cambridgeshire farmer, Enfys Chapman, resulted from a single massive exposure to organophosphate (OP) pesticides in July 1977. The events of that summer turned her life upside down.

One Thursday that July, Enfys was at home on the farm she and her husband owned near Cambridge. The Chapmans raised cattle, fodder crops, and organic vegetables, and Enfys had built up a prize-winning Jersey herd from a single cow she bought from the University veterinary department.

"All of a sudden we heard a helicopter come past the house," she remembers. Realising that it was spraying her neighbours' fields, and that her cattle were outside, she went outside to see what was going on. "I hadn't realised they were spraying to such an extent until I ran out through the vegetable garden and was drenched with this stuff." The cows were also sprayed, and while her son moved them and hosed them down, Enfys set off over the fence to talk to the pilot. She was not reassured by what she learned about the chemicals he was using.

"He told me the spray was much safer than malathion, and that the cows could return to the field the next day. I am not a very believing person, and because he mentioned malathion, I knew it was an organophosphate, and that I couldn't put milk in the tank until I found out what the cattle had been exposed to."

Enfys and her sons began to feel ill very quickly. "We all began to feel a malaise and a headache, and the cows were behaving oddly," she says. "The cows all had blisters on their udders, and although I had made everybody shower and change their clothes we had blisters in our ears and in our eyes. We felt sick and had diarrhoea."

Enfys spent most of the afternoon trying to get help, but could get no reply from the Milk Marketing Board or the local HSE inspector. However, one local vet told her that if she put milk from the exposed cows into her bulk tank, she could kill half of Cambridge.

"The public health people very quickly put a stop on the milk and closed the farm shop," she says. The HSE told her not to dispose of the milk from exposed cattle down the drain, and also warned her sons to keep away from the cows, as the OPs could be a reproductive hazard. Finally, she was told to close the footpaths across her farm.

"It was pandemonium over the weekend. We had people wanting to buy food, we had milk we couldn't do anything with, and all of us that had been in contact with the stuff were feeling pretty ill; I worse than anybody," she remembers.

Five days later, Enfys suffered what she describes as a "massive spasm" and was rushed into Addenbrookes hospital by ambulance. She says, "I was being thrown about so much [by the spasms] that they had to manacle me. The ambulance crew thought I had tried to commit suicide. They had a nightmare journey."

Enfys remained at Addenbrookes for a month. She had gone in a fit and active 48 year old, but says, "When I came out I probably looked like I was 78. I had lost my memory, I lost my sight, I couldn't use my hands, I couldn't walk properly, and I lost my hearing too. It was like fumbling in the dark. I had received five times the lethal dose for someone my weight, so I was very lucky," she says.

She also counts herself lucky because, as she puts it, "We were quite well connected in Cambridge - we had connections that a lot of other people would not." And it was those connections she used in 1988 when she and others set up PEGS, the Pesticide Exposure Group of Sufferers.

"We set out to collate as much information as we could on pesticide exposures and their adverse effects, so that if in due course the authorities became interested, we would have evidence to show what was happening. We have an enormous amount of information, and since 1990 the Government has been asking us for it, so we haven't really needed to go out campaigning. In fact, we couldn't campaign, we weren't fit enough, but we have managed to do quite a lot by providing information," she explains.

In the past 10 years PEGS has dealt with 11,000 enquiries, and held 22 meetings (or forums) throughout the UK. PEGS forums are held in areas with recent pesticide exposure problems, and have attracted up to 200 people. The forums are important for victims of pesticide exposure, Enfys says, because "it means they get to know people in their own neck of the woods. We have had three forums in Scotland, one in Ireland. Southern Ireland have formed their own group called PAIN, and we have helped set up groups in Sri Lanka, Morocco, Canada, and New Zealand."

She counts the forums as one of PEGS greatest successes. "The forums have been wonderful," she says. "I didn't think I could manage it, setting up meetings all over the place is a tremendous effort for someone who is not particularly well. But we have also seen people getting better, and I think we are going to get redress for people; not necessarily compensation for everything that has happened to them, but they are going to feel that they have got some redress for what they have suffered."

However, Enfys is acutely aware of those who have not recovered. In fact, they feel so bad as a direct or indirect result of pesticide exposure that many of PEGS' callers are suicidal. She says: "The worst thing is the suicides, the ones I haven't managed to stop. What a waste of life."

Although she thinks self-help groups like PEGS are important, she would like others to do more, and is disappointed that so many people are still being poisoned by pesticides. "I was surprised that in 10 years we had managed to do so much, but I was hoping that the problem would have eased off. It hasn't, and it's not getting any less. The reason so many people have problems is because they think that if a product is licensed then it is safe. If you are told it is safe, you do not query it. But nothing is safe, if it is meant to kill something, it is not going to be safe. It would be safer to do something else."

"I wish there was a readily accessible system for testing for pesticide exposure. You can get tested if you are lucky, but it is not readily accessible to everyone, and I hope centres will be set up to treat people who have suffered from chemical exposures, because it is not just pesticides, it is all kinds of chemicals."

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